


Follow You Home

by ellacj



Series: 52 Weeks of Swan Queen [21]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Dark One Emma, F/F, it's late don't hate me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellacj/pseuds/ellacj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No matter how fast light travels, it finds the darkness has always got there first, and is waiting for it."</p><p>-Terry Pratchett</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow You Home

**Author's Note:**

> So this is a week late but I'm gonna be doing some catch-up soon, don't worry

The last time Regina held the dagger, her hand shook.

To hold that power in her hand, to control someone so ultimately, to know that with just one stab _she_ could be limitless… it rattled her to her core. And so her hand shook.

But now, standing in her vault with the dagger in her grip, her left hand shakes infinitely more violently, and for the polar opposite reason. Because this time the name on the dagger has two names, each four letters long. This is the name of a person she doesn’t want to control.

“Why haven’t you summoned me yet?” The voice behind Regina makes her jump, and when she turns around Emma doesn’t look like the Dark One the dagger claims she is. She just looks like Emma.

Regina’s hand is still quivering as she lowers the dagger to her side. “I won’t control you like that. Not after… everything,” she finishes, unable to find a phrasing that wouldn’t make it sound like she was either angry at or in love with Emma.

Not that she isn’t both of those things.

Emma moves as though to reach out and touch her shoulder, but seems to think better of it and lets her hand fall. “Thanks,” she mutters.

“Of course.” Regina hesitates, but she asks anyway. She has to know. “Are you okay?”

There’s a long silence between them, consisting of Regina looking into Emma’s eyes and Emma looking anywhere else but back at Regina’s. Finally, she sighs. “It’s hard to control,” she says, voice small as though hiding from something. “Sometimes it just… overwhelms me. And I can’t control myself.”

Regina reaches out to take Emma’s hand, but slowly pulls back when Emma flinches in front of her. The reservation Emma practiced before has nothing on the fear dancing in this woman’s eyes at the prospect of a simple touch.

“You have to promise me something,” she whispers. “If I do anything I can’t come back from, you have to use that.” She gestures to the dagger in Regina’s hand. “Do what you have to do to make sure I don’t hurt anyone.”

“Emma, we’re going to get you back.”

“I know. But until then…” she trails off with a heavy sigh. “Until then I’m the Dark One. I have no idea what I’m gonna do. So just use it if you have to, okay? Please.”

Regina’s hand slowly resumes its tremulous state as she nods. “Okay.”

 

Regina expects there to be a long internal battle over the promise she made, but it turns out to be a promise quite easy to keep.

Less than twenty-four hours after their conversation in the vault, Regina’s woken at four in the morning by shouts of her name coming from Henry’s room. She doesn’t even bother putting a robe on over her silk-and-lace pajamas, running into Henry’s bedroom to see the object of her nightmares.

Emma’s got him by the throat against the wall in a strange parody of the way Regina had held David the day the curse broke. Regina’s stomach churns as Henry meets her eyes, his own flashing with terror.

The dagger is still under her pillow, and her bedroom seems like it’s a mile away as she runs to grab it. “Emma,” she says, wishing her trembling hand didn’t betray her. “Put him down.”

The reaction is almost instantaneous, Emma dropping Henry to the floor with a crash and retreating several feet away.

“Henry,” Regina breathes. “Are you all right?” She checks him all over for injuries, and only when she’s satisfied he’s okay does she turn to face Emma, still sulking near the wall. “You’re coming with me.”

With a wave of her hand they’re on the road, just inside the town line with Emma on her knees and Regina standing above her. “What happened?” Regina hisses. “This isn’t _you_.”

“Can’t it be?” A grin slowly spreads across Emma’s face, one without mirth or joy. This is the smile of a Dark One. “Don’t tell me you don’t understand. For the first time no one’s depending on me to be the Savior or the perfect daughter or a good mom. I can do _whatever the hell I want_.”

Regina feels her heart increase its rhythm, but still she stands her ground, still she stares into steely green eyes and tries desperately to still her hand. “Emma, you can’t just run from your responsibilities. The darkness can’t replace the important things in your life.”

“And what do you think is important to me?”

“Henry. Your parents.”

Emma barks out a short laugh, shaking her head. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Never mind.” Emma lifts her gaze from the ground back to Regina’s face, knees still locked to the ground as though by some unseen force. That force still quivers in Regina’s left hand as Emma continues. “We’re the same, you know. You act so righteous but I know you miss it. You love watching your enemy shaking in fear as you rip out their heart and crush it right in front of them.”

Emma’s words are like poison, entering Regina’s system at every opening and infiltrating her blood, her mind. The thing is, Emma’s not entirely off the mark. There’s some part of her that _does_ miss watching men tremble before her, misses the feel of a steady hand holding their hearts in her grip and watching it turn to dust.

But now the roles are reversed, the Evil Queen with a shaking hand standing before the woman meant to be the Savior whose eyes are hard like the emeralds they pretend to be.

“No,” she says firmly. “I love my life. And no matter what you choose to do I _will_ fight for it.” Her fingers flex around the handle of the dagger and she feels her hand finally still its motions. “Even if it means never seeing you again.” She doesn’t curse the way her voice breaks; she _wants_ Emma to know how much this hurts her. “There’s no magic over than line. You won’t be able to hurt anyone.”

Emma’s eyes finally show something other than hate, and for the first time since the sacrifice she looks utterly childlike. “Wait. Regina, please.”

“You told me to use this if I had to.” She sighs heavily. “You haven’t given me a choice here, Emma.”

“Regina, _wait_.” Emma’s eyes seem three shades lighter all of a sudden and the bags beneath them look as though they’ve evaporated. “It’s me.”

Regina hesitates ever so slightly, and her grip on the dagger falters just a bit. “Emma?”

“I… I attacked Henry, didn’t I?”

“Yes.”

Emma gnaws on her bottom lip like a beaver on an oak. “Sending me over the line is probably the best thing to do at this point.” She shifts her gaze up to Regina’s and her eyes are wet and Regina’s hand is trembling again as though it never stopped.

“I’m sorry, Emma. We’ll find a way to bring you back, I swear.”

“I know.” And just like that it’s this morning again, the two of them in the vault and Emma trusting Regina with her life just as she always has. “I’ll be okay until then. I’ve survived out there before, remember?” It’s just an inkling of a smile, but it’s enough.

“Stand up. Please.”

Emma does. And she reaches out, tucks a piece of dark hair behind Regina’s ear. “You were wrong before, you know. I don’t just care about Henry and my parents.” She doesn’t say the next sentence, but Regina hears it just as loud as if she had.

It’s just a simple brushing of lips, nothing more, but it opens doors to worlds Regina’s never dreamed could exist. And then, right then, Regina truly believes that the decision of fate isn’t one that matters to her.

And then, as quickly as it begins, Emma pulls back with wet cheeks and terrified green eyes, and begins to move backwards. In just a few steps she’s standing in front of the bright orange line. “I’ll see you soon,” she murmurs, smile wide and hopeful.

Regina reaches out to take Emma’s hand but catches only a whisper as Emma steps backward over the line and into a land without magic. And as she turns to walk toward civilization, Regina feels her own cheeks growing wet. She sets the dagger down on the ground and clutches her left hand to her chest, feeling her heart beat steadily within her.

Her hands tremble all the way home.


End file.
